Brink's main story picks up 40 years ago after the establishment of the Ark. The city initially developed as a vibrant new community, until the world's seas started to rise, causing the rest of the population to flee like drowned rats to the only place of safety. As more ships flocked for safe haven on the Ark, the city had to make stark choices to avoid overcrowding and massive social problems. A security force emerged to bring order to the chaos, but it could not stop the inevitable problems of social overcrowding - including slums, crime, infestation and violence - turning the once paradise into a decaying ruin, racked by civil war. The player is confronted with a choice - do you sign up with the security force to save the Ark from annihilation, or do you join the Resistance to fight back against the oppressors, before getting the hell out of there?

Both stories are fully playable in both online and offline play, bringing a variety of different missions to tackle in squad-based action. The two narratives interweave, meaning the Security's perception of what is going on will be entirely different to the Resistance. This duality of role could play an interesting part in gripping players to the world of Brink and, crucially, keeping them coming back for more. The game's art style somewhat mixes Gear Of War-style fantasy grittiness with the brightly coloured mayhem of Borderlands, as character models, maps and weapons are all cranked up to hyper-realistic levels. The Ark itself is vast, but the world has been carefully cut down into small chunks, similar to multiplayer maps in their right.

Splash Damage is quick to stress that Brink represents a new direction in online/offline shooters, taking on everything the studio loves and loathes about the genre. The game is filled with techniques designed to make players feel less oriented towards selfishly racking up the kills and instead focus on tackling the objectives as a team. This strategy even goes as far as not giving breakdowns of how many kills each player gets after gameplay sessions, or rewarding large amounts of Experience Points (XP) for a high body-count. A Splash Damage producer even claimed that players "could get through the whole game without killing anyone and still end up the most valuable player". Instead, XP is awarded for being a team player - completing objectives, restocking teammates with ammo, or reviving them when they die.

The game's online component will feature no global leaderboards, instead offering just the ability to share scores amongst friends. Splash Damage said that it is dispiriting for players to take on almost unbeatable scores set by someone they have never met; instead, it's much more fun to tackle a friend's achievements. A great care deal of care has been taken in Brink to level the playing field and ensure that well drilled FPS veterans do not come to dominate the matches. This includes an effort to better integrate the single and multiplayer modes so that less experienced players do not get a nasty shock when they go online. The Splash Damage producer added: "If another player beats you, we want it to be because they are better than you, not because they bought the game a month earlier."

Brink is split into three main modes - the Security and Resistance storylines, playable in online and offline; free play, in which players can take on the different levels in any order; and challenges, a variety of different missions for earning more XP and levelling up (new weapons can only be unlocked by completing the challenges). There are four classes to choose from - Soldier, Operative, Medic and Engineer. Soldiers can restock their teammate's ammo, Medics can revive downed colleagues, Operatives are able to hack into terminals, and Engineers can fix broken machinery. The game has a regenerative health system, but when players die they can either wait for Medics to throw them a revive stick, or simply respawn as usual. A main objective wheel, activated by pressing up on the D-Pad, indicates primary and secondary objectives. An interesting feature is the ability to switch classes in-game at designated command points, which is clearly part of making the player more focuses on the objectives at hand.

In a demo session, we played as both sides of the civil war, starting with the Security led by Captain Mokoena. The mission was right at the early stages of the campaign, after the Security have been given authorisation to use deadly force in their mission to bring order to the Ark. From here, the player is thrown into the character customisation options, involving choosing from a range of presets, such as 'the psycho', 'the geezer', the 'smooth guy' and so on. There are also the usual options for changing skin colour, voice styles and clothing. All weapons are fully customisable, including larger magazines, better sights and grips for improving aim stability - all of which are purchased with XP. Players can stipulate their preferred class on the options menu, meaning it will always be automatically selected when they enter a match. A range of passive and active abilities can also be upgraded, the latter being allocated to slots on the D-Pad.

In an eight-man team, we tackled a Security mission involving the retrieval of what was claimed to be a new bio-weapon being developed by the Resistance. This involved escorting a cutting machine through a dockyard area to break into an armoured vault so that a sample could be taken to develop a countermeasure. The team had to tackle a series of objectives along the way, while also combating the horde of Resistance forces attempting to thwart the plans. The game comes with options for default and customisable control set ups, but a nice feature is being able to access a number of presets taken from other shooters, such as Gears of War and Call Of Duty.

The guns all feel solid and satisfying to shoot, but it certainly takes a fair bit of hammering to down an enemy, especially with the more heavily armoured players. The action is fast and chaotic at first while everyone gets to grips with what is going on, but soon the focus on teamwork and cooperation starts to make sense. Advancing the cutter through the map requires completing a series of objectives, such as blowing open a door by placing a blast charge and then guarding it from being disarmed by the enemy. The mission featured a great balance to the action, with the focus on teamwork feeling familiar yet also distinctive. Going rogue on a kill streak is perfectly feasible in the game, but there is more value in operating as a unit. Guiding the cutter also required using the skills of all four classes to achieve different tasks. For example, if the machine breaks down under enemy fire only an engineer can get things going again.

Playing the same mission as the Resistance gives a completely different set of objectives, under the guise that the Security was trying to steal medical research. When playing as the Resistance, the player can select different body types as to how they want to play. Taking a heavy-set figure enables you to take more damages and wield the heavier weapons, such as Gatling guns, but that comes at the expense of being less agile. Taking the lighter frame has the opposite effect, while a normal body offers a middle ground. There are numerous options for customising the Resistance fighters, from giving them clown face paint to putting coloured bin bags on their arms. All Resistance weapons are also fully customisable, but with more DIY attachments.

We played a mission on day two of the campaign called 'Breakout', in which the fighters were tasked with breaking into a security tower to rescue a downed comrade, before escorting him to safety. In essence, there is very little difference in the way the two sides play control-wise, but the difference comes with the extras. The Resistance use the game's parkour elements much more, such as sliding into cover and jumping between obstacles. There is also a nice tactical aspect of using the heavy and light soldiers, such as the big guns going in blazing while the light guys flank, or complete the objectives.

Again, there is a nice push and pull to the matches, with the players having to advance to an objective and hold off the enemy, while their colleagues get the job done. It's all about choosing the right class in Brink. For example, freeing the injured comrade meant carefully escorting him through the level, but if he gets more severely hurt then a medic must come to revive him before the mission can proceed. Aside from the main story modes, there are also specific challenges aimed at tapping into the gameplay aspects, such as specific parkour missions, along with a Gears of War-style 'Horde' mode called 'Tower Defence'; and an engineering challenge. The balance between all these key elements, along with the richness of the online experience and the immersion of the dual story will be pivotal to Brink's success when it washes up this summer.

Brink will be released on May 17 in North America and May 20 in Europe on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.